


far too late for that

by Eva



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 23:34:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13512096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: Dreams, affected by the Force, affected by Force users, experienced by too many stormtroopers and others.





	far too late for that

It’s there, just hidden around the edges, in Poe’s glare, in Connix’s grimace. In Rose’s solid back-turn.

It’s there, in the pain, in the guilt, of General Organa’s eyes.

Rey, Light love her, doesn’t see it. She argues passionately for the possibility of Kylo’s--of Ben’s return. Of his draw to the Light. And Finn doesn’t argue, doesn’t censure. 

He understands.

He doesn’t know much about the Force--none of the stormtroopers are allowed that sort of education. That’s reserved for the Knights, they come to know. But they learn enough to frighten them, to keep them obedient--Finn knows now, knows with a bone-deep certainty, that the knowledge they’re given is perfectly attuned to how much they need to know to be afraid.

And with Kylo Ren, it’s worse than that.

It starts with dreams. For all of them, and maybe it’s Finn alone who knows this, but he doubts it. Because if there were enough people to trust him, there had to have been more. Ren’s victims had to have been more.

Dreams. A few memories of someone else’s childhood, of something idyllic and therefore strange: not memories of classes, of voices droning in unison, but rather of play, of exploration. Of possibility. Of hope.

That possibility, that hope, being the most seductive aspect. Finn doesn’t remember having a name before Poe gifted it to him, almost without thinking, there is wrenching painful love in the memory, and he wishes it had more strength than--

A mother’s eyes. A father’s easy laughter. His body, small and fragile, lifted with utmost care. These are dreams, dreams of love and ease, dreams of light, of Light, and Finn has never had them. Never, though he had heard of them, had coached no fewer than three troopers through them--

It burns him, now, to dream them. To recognize Han Solo, to recognize Leia Organa. To feel the trust and love Ben Solo must have felt, as a child. To feel the softening of his own soul, the yearning of his fragile consciousness to love--

Starkiller Base.

A lightsaber battle. The fire in his back, the scream in his ears--”TRAITOR!”

Finn tries to hold onto them, even as the dreams suck him in, bury him deep. Offer him the kind of sweetness he’s never known, he’s only hoped for, and never hoped for, not really, until--

FIRE IN HIS BACK, scream in his ears--”TRAITOR!”

Rey, Light love her, doesn’t know she isn’t the first, and won’t be the last. Won’t be Kylo Ren’s first victim, whether it be purposeful or not. Whether he tries to draw troopers to him with dreams of love, of acceptance, of care--and then breaks them with a brutal Force-choke, with a careless flay of their minds.

Finn has found no fewer than four troopers near-catatonic in the halls of Starkiller Base. Finn has drawn out three. 

(The last disappeared. Stormtroopers who didn’t survive their training always disappear, and Kylo Ren is a kind of training. Being deaf enough in the heart to survive Sith Lords has to be a kind of training.)

But--

“I know you,” Kylo Ren says, and he is not Kylo Ren in the dreams. He is the man Rey must know, this alleged Ben Solo, and Finn tries to wake up, tries--

“The stormtrooper on Jakku. On the base. The traitor.”

The last, with the same venom Finn remembers from that snowy forest, and he is dreaming, he knows he is dreaming, please let him wake up, please--

The hand on his chin feels too real, too warm. Even gloved.

And Ren’s eyes are like flames.

“FN-2187.”

Finn’s rebellion is automatic. His name--a precious gift, moreso than anyone in the Resistance realized, must be acknowledged. Must be made real. “I’m Finn,” he snarls, and with that, with horror and dismay, the dream becomes realer, feels realer, more real than real.

The Force, he thinks, and tries to pull away. To hide in his stormtrooper training.

It’s far too late for that.

“Finn,” Ren says, and it’s considering, it’s a testing sort of connotation, as if he might accept it, might not. And Finn’s dreaming body strains, as if he might stand taller, to demand the respect his name deserves.

And it snaps something into being, something terrible and strong.

“Names shouldn’t be given so lightly, Finn.” He’s never been the subject of Ren’s coldest gaze, never wishes it anyone. “I can find you anywhere, now.”

The truth of it is bitter, cold, strikingly so, even at the feel of lips on his, the desperation of taste, the cruel mockery of the hand on the back of his head, gentle in its absolute domination. Something Finn never knew, never experienced until long after he should have been free. Should have been safe.


End file.
